'The Advertiser' Article
This article originally appeared in 'The Advertiser, and Australian newspaper, in the Wednesday, July 29, 1998, edition. I do not have permission from the copyright owners to be redistibuting this, and I am only doing it to give people a chance to read the article who do not have access to Austalian newspapers. Much thanks to Lita for sending me this.
Another Dimension
American TV star Kari Wuhrer, the gorgeous fighter pilot from the sci-fi series Sliders, is striving for success her way. Kari, who plays marine officer Maggie Beckett, has cut a pop-rock album and is heading to Australia in a few weeks to promote it - though she is deliberately steering clear of the major record labels.
"I'm selling it through the Internet in the beginning of August," she says of the album, 'Shiney'. "I'd like to do it with baby steps. I'd like to do it my way."
A big fan of Cat Stevens - in addition to Radiohead, Tori Amos, Elvis Costello, Sonic Youth, Kate Bush, Billy Joel and Joni Mitchell - Wuhrer is in the midst of divorcing musician Daniel, who has a few songs on her album. "He's an incredible songwriter and he's going to do something one day, I hope," she says.
While Kari hopes to break into the pop world, she is certainly making a name for herself in Hollywood. She co-starred with Jack Nicholson in Sean Penn's 'The Crossing Guard', with Jennifer Lopez and Jon Voigt in 'Anaconda' David Schwimmer in 'Kissing a Fool', with Ray Liotta and Anjelica Houston in 'Phoenix', and with Emilio Estevez in the coming attraction 'Sand'.
Nicholson, she says, "taught me a lot about film making and a lot about preparing for a role as an actor". "He was really giving and generous. He's a good coach, a little sexual ... but really a great guy," she says.
A larrikin? "Yeah, more than a bit."
In Sliders, Kari is one of a team of four who slide to parallel dimensions of earth, using a timer which opens a sliding vortex. The motley crew - including real-life brothers Jerry and Charlie O'Connell - experience and explore the earth as it would be if a different historical or evolutionary path had been taken."
"We make a social commentary with each show, though I don't think it's anything that serious. We have the 'what if' factor," she says. "What if we weren't as conscious about our society as we are today? What if we let the whole drug issue slide? What if we let democracy slide? The list goes on. I like to think instead of just entertaining. We show what America would be like without the values we've installed."
Kari says brothers Jerry and Charlie (who play brothers Quinn and Colin Mallory) "fight all the time, especially when Jerry directs. He always picks on his younger brother to be a better actor."
This season, the Sliders are battling to save their home world, Earth Prime, from the evil Kromaggs - a warrior and predatory race from a parallel world who enslave every world they find.
"Even though they're physically stunted in our evolutionary process, they were much more heightened intellectually, scientifically," Kari says. Does she believe in UFO's and aliens?
"I'd like to - and when I look up in the sky and I see things moving, I'm riveted. But I've got too many things to worry about on this world to spend my time thinking about what's on another world," she laughs.
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